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Networking giant Cisco is getting into the coronavirus monitoring and mitigation game with its Webex remote meeting property. The company notes that in the wake of mandates issued to employees to halt travel plans and/or work from home, traffic across its Webex backbone has increased significantly.

Webex meeting traffic connecting Chinese users to global workplaces has increased by a factor of 22 since the outbreak began; traffic in other Asian countries is up by 400 percent or more, and free signup rates in impacted countries have increased 700 percent or more.

In response, Cisco is offering temporarily unlimited usage (with no time restrictions) in all countries where the service is available (full list here), not just the ones worst hit by coronavirus. The company is also offering free 90-day licenses to businesses that are not currently Webex customers and offering free upgrades to customers whose current plan is insufficient to accommodate increased traffic due to the outbreak.

In the worst affected countries, telepresence and remote work software like Webex is currently the only alternative to a complete shutdown of activities. In its press release, Cisco highlights the Nesbitt Center, an organization working with disabled young adults in Hong Kong.

All Hong Kong schools, including the Nesbitt Center, have been required to suspend day programs during the outbreak. Webex videoconferencing has allowed the Nesbitt Center to continue delivering educational sessions despite the lockdown.

If you can’t or don’t want to use Webex, try Jitsi

For those who need immediate teleconferencing capabilities but cannot or do not wish to use Webex, we can also recommend the much lesser-known Jitsi.

Jitsi is free and open source software, offering video call and screen sharing capabilities. Advanced users can build their own Jitsi teleconferencing network with all on-premises equipment; people who just need to get something done on-the-fly with no setup at all can use the freely provided Jitsi Meet.

Jitsi Meet is ready to go in-browser, on any platform, with no software installation required. We see Linux User Groups presenting over Jitsi to 10-50+ remote participants pretty frequently.

We've also had good success organizing last-minute calls on Jitsi Meet to completely non-technical people, with no more setup than providing someone a URL.

Is webex the one to disconnect everyone from the conference every 5 minutes if the leader is not online? I can't remember my brains got fried by microphone feedback and by shitty dual monitor support..

I work in a big office and take public transport. In Seattle where we know we have an outbreak. I'll let you guys know all about this coronavirus business, in a week or two.

Unfortunately, much like Coronavirus we're not sure WebEx will go away once you've gotten it or that your institution will become resistant after the initial expense, misery, and lost productivity it causes.

Implement Oracle products (including Taleo) in every possible context for your company, but only at your current job; use webex for all your video conferencing needs, forever; get coronavirus;Apple's butterfly keyboard mechanisms for all your typing, forever;crushed glass mixed into your ice water;having to reply politely to every unsolicited email from a wannabe vendor at work;provide volunteer tech support to the senior citizens in your community for 8 hours per week;

And if you order stuff online, how many infected warehouse and delivery people will it take to deliver the virus to you along with your package? A lot of those people don't get decent sick leave, or even health insurance at all.

Virus. Not bacteria. Bacteria live on surfaces for a long time. Most viruses do not live long while exposed to the environment. They die very quickly outside of a host. Which is why they need a host in the first place.

Implement Oracle products (including Taleo) in every possible context for your company, but only at your current job; .....use webex for all your video conferencing needs, forever; provide volunteer tech support to the senior citizens in your community for 8 hours per week;get coronavirus;Apple's butterfly keyboard mechanisms for all your typing, forever;crushed glass mixed into your ice water;having to reply politely to every unsolicited email from a wannabe vendor at work;

And if you order stuff online, how many infected warehouse and delivery people will it take to deliver the virus to you along with your package? A lot of those people don't get decent sick leave, or even health insurance at all.

Virus. Not bacteria. Bacteria live on surfaces for a long time. Most viruses do not live long while exposed to the environment. They die very quickly outside of a host. Which is why they need a host in the first place.

I've never had issues with Zoom-- it's actually surprising to hear that folks don't like it.

We're stuck with Google Hangouts at my company though, so maybe I'm just jealous.

I don't hate Zoom—I reserve that for the never-to-be-sufficiently cursed Skype for Business.

Zoom is clunky, but—usually—works, even on my Linux workstation. There have been a couple times where the Linux client randomly was broken for a day or two with no workaround. In both those cases, I set up Jitsi Meet conferences with the vendors who were conference calling (this is in an Ars context) and everything went fine, even though they'd never heard of Jitsi prior to me inviting them.

I am also happy to report that Teams is solid, and works juuuuuust fine in a browser with no software installed. So whoever's still using Skype for Business... please get the hell off of that deprecated platform yesterday, and start using MS Teams instead!

Implement Oracle products (including Taleo) in every possible context for your company, but only at your current job; crushed glass mixed into your ice water;use webex for all your video conferencing needs, forever; get coronavirus;having to reply politely to every unsolicited email from a wannabe vendor at work;Apple's butterfly keyboard mechanisms for all your typing, forever;provide volunteer tech support to the senior citizens in your community for 8 hours per week;

We don't know that. The death stats so far published range from 0.3% for young to 1% for middle aged to 3-5% for older, to about 10-15% for very old. But pretty sure those numbers were obtained by dividing the deaths with known verified cases. This virus causes pretty mild symptoms in most patients. Not all of them sought help and therefore were probably not counted in official numbers of those who recovered.

At least I hope the hell that's the case because those death rates as published are terrifying.

We don't know that. The death stats so far published range from 0.3% for young to 1% for middle aged to 3-5% for older, to about 10-15% for very old. But pretty sure those numbers were obtained by dividing the deaths with known verified cases. This virus causes pretty mild symptoms in most patients. Not all of them sought help and therefore were probably not counted in official numbers of those who recovered.

At least I hope the hell that's the case because those death rates as published are terrifying.

You have the exact same issue with all epidemiology so the numbers are comparable between the viruses.Also the issue is how easily it infects. Right now it looks like it is very capable in that regard which means that even with fairly low risk of death it could easily overwhelm the healthcare system which would then drag down a lot of other things.

I've never had issues with Zoom-- it's actually surprising to hear that folks don't like it.

We're stuck with Google Hangouts at my company though, so maybe I'm just jealous.

I don't hate Zoom—I reserve that for the never-to-be-sufficiently cursed Skype for Business.

Zoom is clunky, but—usually—works, even on my Linux workstation. There have been a couple times where the Linux client randomly was broken for a day or two with no workaround. In both those cases, I set up Jitsi Meet conferences with the vendors who were conference calling (this is in an Ars context) and everything went fine, even though they'd never heard of Jitsi prior to me inviting them.

I am also happy to report that Teams is solid, and works juuuuuust fine in a browser with no software installed. So whoever's still using Skype for Business... please get the hell off of that deprecated platform yesterday, and start using MS Teams instead!

I've been pleasantly surprised at Teams. I've not experienced it tried as a large conference platform yet though.

Until I can watch the guy sitting in the back of the [X] delegation while the person fronting the [Y] delegation is talking, none of these video platforms can replace a meeting. Furthermore, until they can replicate the back-end negotiations that happen while inquiring about one another's families over coffee breaks and meals, virtual won't replace vital.

That said, I'll take all the virtual supplementation I can get. Especially if I can get the other guy to wake up at 2:00 a.m. for the meeting.

Eric Yuan (Zoom CEO) was an early Webex Engineer who was VP of engineering for Webex but got upset at where things were headed with CISCO, so he left and started zoom after his non-compete ended.

So basically Zoom is what Eric wanted Webex to be but CISCO disagreed...and now he is taking their biz and CISCO is losing a lot of customers because they sat on their asses in regards to Webex development for YEARS

1) hey WTF what are all these Linux hosts on the voice VLAN?!2) oooooh it's the new polycom phones running embedded linux. With 10 year old builds of apache and ssh! Fun. 3) telcom folk: hey it's not working can you open (shitload of ports) for polycom4) me: in or out?5) telcom: both (them confused by in and out phone calls, not in and out network traffic)6) telcom and me back and forth7) vendor: these ports8) done9) telcom: hey it's not working can we have a public IP address and no firewall rules?10) me: ??????? Firewall blocks are logged, there are none, your problem is not the firewall11) telcom: yes but can we have a public IP and no firewall rules?12) me: (╯° °）╯︵ ┻━┻

I've never had issues with Zoom-- it's actually surprising to hear that folks don't like it.

We're stuck with Google Hangouts at my company though, so maybe I'm just jealous.

I don't hate Zoom—I reserve that for the never-to-be-sufficiently cursed Skype for Business.

Zoom is clunky, but—usually—works, even on my Linux workstation. There have been a couple times where the Linux client randomly was broken for a day or two with no workaround. In both those cases, I set up Jitsi Meet conferences with the vendors who were conference calling (this is in an Ars context) and everything went fine, even though they'd never heard of Jitsi prior to me inviting them.

I am also happy to report that Teams is solid, and works juuuuuust fine in a browser with no software installed. So whoever's still using Skype for Business... please get the hell off of that deprecated platform yesterday, and start using MS Teams instead!

For many organizations the choice of which product to use has to do with existing infrastructure. if you are a green field deployment, then the options get easier.

In my organization we have 85 CISCO telepresence rooms. That requires and uses quite a bit of back end infrastructure and whatever cloud product we use MUST be compatible with those rooms AND be stable.

Zoom, Bluejeans, Webex, Teams and Skype for biz all support bridging in H.323/SIP video systems but some are FAR easier (Zoom, Bluejeans) than others (Webex....when it works...Skype for Biz and Jitsi...not so much)

As far as the zoom client is concerned for Linux...just use the WebRTC version of zoom on Linux. I've never had a problem with it.

I've never had issues with Zoom-- it's actually surprising to hear that folks don't like it.

We're stuck with Google Hangouts at my company though, so maybe I'm just jealous.

I don't hate Zoom—I reserve that for the never-to-be-sufficiently cursed Skype for Business.

Zoom is clunky, but—usually—works, even on my Linux workstation. There have been a couple times where the Linux client randomly was broken for a day or two with no workaround. In both those cases, I set up Jitsi Meet conferences with the vendors who were conference calling (this is in an Ars context) and everything went fine, even though they'd never heard of Jitsi prior to me inviting them.

I am also happy to report that Teams is solid, and works juuuuuust fine in a browser with no software installed. So whoever's still using Skype for Business... please get the hell off of that deprecated platform yesterday, and start using MS Teams instead!

I'm a big fan of teams for meetings. Runs well, runs fine without a client, and runs across different internal environments. I can log into my email in O365 and join a teams meeting from my personal laptop with no issues, though I bet that's all down to security policy.

Not a big fan of it for IM though. All your collab conversations, from 1 on 1 chat to empty meeting rooms, goes into a singular "Chat" tab, with sub-sections for each chat. Also, since there's only one source of notifications, and there's no distinction between "watched" groups and direct messages (and I get notifications from watched groups at a 10:1 ratio vs direct messages), it means that I'll likely miss a message that you send me. You also can't delete a 1 on 1 chat, which hurts my soul.

Edit: Forgot my favorite part about Teams: I have the ability to mute other people in voice calls, without being the meeting organizer. Not sure if that's normal, or an oversight. But it's amazing!

I've never had issues with Zoom-- it's actually surprising to hear that folks don't like it.

We're stuck with Google Hangouts at my company though, so maybe I'm just jealous.

I don't hate Zoom—I reserve that for the never-to-be-sufficiently cursed Skype for Business.

Zoom is clunky, but—usually—works, even on my Linux workstation. There have been a couple times where the Linux client randomly was broken for a day or two with no workaround. In both those cases, I set up Jitsi Meet conferences with the vendors who were conference calling (this is in an Ars context) and everything went fine, even though they'd never heard of Jitsi prior to me inviting them.

I am also happy to report that Teams is solid, and works juuuuuust fine in a browser with no software installed. So whoever's still using Skype for Business... please get the hell off of that deprecated platform yesterday, and start using MS Teams instead!

Teams is legitimately great. It's like Slack, but with an actual support team and an SLA.